Conservative fiscal ideas are largely nonsense, but they spin a coherent
narrative. Leftists must do likewise

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Virtually everything Republicans say about taxes today is a lie. So wrote
Bruce Bartlett, one of the 1980s architects of GOP economic orthodoxy, in
a late September op-ed for USA Today. Bartlett was an aide to Rep. Jack
Kemp, the highly influential New York Republican. I helped originate the
Republican obsession with slashing taxes that came to be called
?supply-side economics,' Bartlett explained, and he still thinks that was
useful under the circumstances at the time. But it has long outlived its
usefulness and is now nothing but dogma completely divorced from reality,
he wrote.

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For example, Tax cuts and tax rate reductions will not pay for themselves;
they never have, Bartlett wrote. There is no evidence that tax reform
raises growth. ... And the Republican idea that tax increases always crash
the economy is belied by the experiences after Bill Clinton raised taxes
in 1993 and Barack Obama did the same?in 2013. The economy grew nicely and
the stock market boomed in both cases.

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The next day, in the Washington Post, Bartlett took aim at the central GOP
lie that tax cuts inevitably lead to economic growth. Thats wishful
thinking, he wrote. In reality, theres no evidence that a tax cut now
would spur growth.